Poured 333 ml bottle into a St Bernardus glass. A huge creamy head forms pushing to the limits of the glass, thick sheets of lacing are linger down the north side of my glass. Once the head falls down the dark brown body (nearly black) is adorn by a thick sheet of creamy foam.

The aroma for a big quad is a bit underwhelming. A lot of spice and light fruit aromas are though. I'm getting a certain pepper aromas, but there fruits and other spices are too well mingled together for me to discern any of them.

With any quad you can expect caramel, a mix of spices such as cloves, a good bit of sugar, and with a darker beer some middle to dark fruits. All that said what makes this beer really stand out and I'm shocked to say this, but justify the high rankings is how they've put it all together. The sweetness in this beer never gets out of hand. The sugars are matched by a clean crisp finish. The spices are over powering to the senses nor are they to be ignored. This bottle is relatively fresh and there's a nice hop bite at the end, imo that is to the beer's advantage as well. Just a flawlessly put together example of the Quad it simply blows beers such as Rochefort 10 out of the water.

It very well be that my enjoyment of this beer over other quads is purely in the mouth feel. The beer is creamy yet light on the mouth and it finishes with this amazing dryness that one might expect from a triple, but never a quad. This is perfection for the style.

This is a true master piece. It isn't a beer I'll drive an hour and a half for again nor one that would be a regular in my rotation, but imagine any real beer drinker not enjoying this one. I really don't generally think much of the Belgian styles, but this beer has found a way to both give the full flavor of a quad without going over the top with spice or sugar.

A-The brew pours with a typically underwhelming (for a Belgian) one-finger head of grey-ish tan head that fades to a thin cap. The beer is murky and tea-colored.

S-The smell is mostly dark, sweet, malted fruits like black cherries, plums, and raisins. There is a light touch of molasses and a pretty significant whiff of sweet, warming alcohol. Just a hint of spice, too.

T-The taste mostly tracks the smell, but with more force. You get the same fruit components, but there is a more earthy, almost vinous taste (maybe tobacco and minerals) that underlies the whole thing. The alcohol, while noticeable, is well-integrated into the rest of the flavor profile. You notice the 10%, but it fits right in.

F-The weight is medium with a light touch of carbonation. Nice balance.

O-This beer was one of the beers to start me into craft some 12 years ago and it is almost as delicious as I remember it, which is a good thing. I cannot say that this is my favorite quad, but it is close and there is nothing wrong with this brew. More particularly, and less nostalgically, I can say that the taste is a nice, complex mix of sweet, fruity malts with subtle touch of earthy, Belgian character. The feel is spot-on for a quad and the whole package is well-balanced.